My messy room was kind of getting out of control. So when I got home last I proceeded to tidy-up like it was my sole mission in life. After starting the massive pile of laundry and sweeping under the bed I realized I had uncovered a few less tangible things that were kind of out of control. The past week or so has been decorated with subtle frustrations and blatant comments about how bad my Arabic is. I mean, the people who tell me this are my friends, of course – shop keepers and taksi drivers continue to insist I “bitakallam kwayyis”….but the people who know me and care about me and know how long I’ve been hear assure me, I suck at Arabic and supremely suck at Egyptian colloquial. but! I’ve figured out why picking up Arabic has been so difficult… Beyond the fact, fus-ha (modern standard) is USELESS outside of the classroom. The problem is, I am not thinking in Arabic. French was easy to learn because I was able to think in the language... I have yet to grasp an Arab mentality or psyche for myself. But in the last 24 hours I have committed myself to aquirering one, and things are already looking hopeful. I've forced myself to ask how to identify everything in the room if I am with a native speaker (and so my room and our apartment will become labeled like a lifesize picture dictionary, heh) and I forbid myself to complete simple tasks with English.

On a more exciting note, tonite was my first night teaching with STAR, an AUC organization that teaches Sudanese refugees... and it was really exciting. One of the women invited me to her home in Dokki for Iftar on Friday! On verra.

MashaAllah! My first day teaching at LAMB was the best teaching experience I’ve ever had! Things went smoother than a satin dress against a bottle of Greygoose… I got a photocopy of a text book last week and absolutely no preparation and training and I was the one teacher assigned to a class without a tutor or an assistant, so I was mildly nervous… the anxiety peaked when my supervisor told me my class was supposed to start at the same time as tonite’s Iftar and that it “would probably be ok” that I was wearing hijab and am not Christian, but “to be prepared for some resistance. Or at least a few attempts to convert me” lol. He also told me my nose piercing, chicly tied back scarf, and quirky personality would probably win them over. All of which did, but I thank God, FLY, and the intimidating kids of Garfield Elementary for such amazing classroom grace, rather than the nose ring, heh… it was magical! I tell people that I feel most alive and most ‘me’ when I teach, but I now know it’s entirely true. Happily, this is the one thing I am kind of good at, and I am just excited something I love has overlapped with an ability to do it well and help people in the process…alHamdulila! I am teaching two blocks and the first one is outstanding – their English is impressive and they are willing to engage in my pseudo-cheesy teaching style. The second class is older and it’s tricky for them to take someone younger than them seriously, but luckily their English isn’t strong enough for them to rebel…yet!

Coptic Cairo is really fascinating too. The school is inside a big Coptic church and when I was leaving it was dark out and the whole place glowed like some medieval castle. Only in the Middle East do blue and green florescent lighting go so well with religion! I’m going to try to take photos next week. Mar Girgis, where the church/school is, is very quiet and very interesting. I broke fast right before my class in the metro station and it was so nice: a little boy ran up and gave me a date and so I split my candy bar with him, another man gave me a packaged date-brownie (I guess the modern day, on-the-go adapatation to dates, heh) and it was just very comforting. Jon Hill, my supervisor was telling me how Cairo is not a city of diversity and it surprised me. I was attracted to Egypt because of its beautiful cultural pluralism, but I’m realizing the Christians are much more of a marginalized minority than I thought. It was awkward to hear the call of the muzzeins echo into the walls of the church, as if even the sounds of the majority religion could be escaped. Then again, there was a certain tinge of un-sacredness to the place too, as my supervisor continued smoking and cursing while entering the church yard. Sometimes I find Muslims hypocritical for altering their behavior SO drastically within holy places or during holy times, but I guess a distinction is still better than a complete disregard? Eitherway, I am very glad I decided to work in Coptic Cairo and am looking forward to spending Christmas and New Year’s with my students’ families and friends… Here's to another new adventure.

<-- The kitchen-aftermath of a very well-enjoyed home-cooked Iftar. Belisa, who is this crazy interesting Brazillian girl that Sasha met at her hostel when she arrived, was living with us for the past week and has just left for London. Side note, she is getting her master’s degree in poliSci with this really cool program that requires you to live in 3-4 different countries over a period of 14 months. We had Iftar together last week as our final meal and wound up talking politics, and religion, and academia, and men, and languages, and life generally for a few hours. I’m bummed she’s gone because she was giving me hope of learning some decent colloquial Arabic – en fin! - but also because I’ve been thinking about how transient our lives are sometimes. Yesterday someone said, I wish I could live in the US for six months, and then a different country for six months, and then a different country for six months… And I was just thinking about how amazing that would be, but how unforgiving time would be. Life would pass by so quickly. I know study abroad is hyped up to be this time of infinite self-discovery, but lately I’ve just felt kind of numb. It’s like life is a sort of anesthesia that just won’t kick in – I get very happy, but I don’t go under, yet I still can’t really function like normal either. I don’t mind that I haven’t actually made my bed in weeks and that books, stray piasters, empty cartons, and clothes are tangled between the sheets. All I know is that I am happy for the time being to exist in a state of shrunken ambitions because I am still optimistic about the possibilities.

Eitherway, it’s getting cooler in Cairo. I rarely sleep with my window open and I find myself turning off my ceiling fan from chill. It’s October and I’ve never flirted with an Autumn as pleasurably mild. Some of my travel plans are finally coming together, since ma chere Melyn will be in Morrocco next semester and Emily Hyatt invited me to Israel after the Jewish holidays in October…

This past weekend I disappeared to Hurghada again and it was blissful. The weekend was entirely different – the crowd was nearly comatose in comparison to last week’s quirky chill bunch and fasting put a different spin on the trip, too– but the advanced diving course was exciting and the tranquility and sweet company were very appreciated. I basically spent the entire week with Sameh and Sawaan, but tried to snap a few pics of everyone else too. The night dive, deep dive, and wreck dive were absolutely pimp. I’ve forbidden myself to go out of town again anytime too soon, but I am plotting some plans for Dahab or Marsa Alam during the Eid alFitr break… on verra.

1. Osama's binat getting out of the water.
2. Underwater group shot, last weekend.
3. Greg is the resident pirate.
4. Osama, Sawwan, me, and Sameh.
5. the advanced course taking the Zodiac out for our drift dive.
6. team chai&sokar
7,8,9,10. a little chill time on the upper deck.

I am very glad I packed:
1. my rap/hip-hop/ghettoPop-filled iPod. Few things inspire nostalgia for the states more than some thug-worthy rap. Music that I pseudo-liked in the US now finds a very warm place in my heart and eardrums, aparently Egyptians aren't Poppin' Their Collars, Big Pimpin', or Leanin' wit it, Rockin' wit it. In fact, they aren't even Bringing Sexyback yet.
2. a tremendous sense of humor. In Amsterdam, an Egyptian immigrant told me I couldn't enjoy Egypt if I took anything too seriously. He said: If you worry about terrorism, you'll drive yourself crazy. If you worry about feminism, you'll be cranky all the time. If you expect anything on time, you're very mislead. Whether its punctionality, air pollution, or . Instead of getting my panties in a twist I've just been able to laugh my frustrations away.
3. a sewing kit. This seems like an obvious one, but I was unaware of how agressive license plates on parked cars could be to pants and skirts before living here. It's only a matter of time before my wardrobe looks like a kleenex kid... explaination of this phrase is needless if you've walked the streets here, and explaining it would just make me feel elitist.

I wish I had packed:
1. ducktape. This amenity would make our showerhead, which remains sub-par and the household joke, somewhat functional, among other things.
2. a thousand AA batteries. I have recently dicovered "everReady" batteries, convienetly available everywhere in Cairo, have enough power to let me take ONE picture before my camera alerts me that my battery is exausted, again.
3. a normal sized - no, a king-sized! - bath towel. I had some serious towel-envy this weekend on the boat as I dried myselves with my washcloth sized Egyptian towel with ugly embroidry...*grumble* hah.
4. all of my class notes from sophomore year. my academic loads seems like a mirror image of last years classes, except with less SAT words and no copy-right laws.

I am feening for:
1. pleasure readers. People talk about reading like it was some bad habit they gave up shortly after highschool.
2. my sense of academic ambition and career-driven priorities. for the first time in my life I am complacent to the possibility my life might be spent in aimless pursuit of something to pass the time, help people, and reassure me i am not a waste of human potential instead of some solid career. at this point even grad. school seems like an option among others rather than the next thing on the list. this might be bad, but this might also be the liberation my life plan was in need of.
3. standard, sophisticated English. I sound fobbier and fobbier every day. Even my French is suffering from some serious Arabic infusion. I sound like a North African with no solid or grammatically correct grasp on any language. Articles and adverb agreement are fading into conversational

Suprisingly, I do not even slightly miss:
1. my treo or the internet/email addiction that came with it.
2. PrinceCafe and its absurdly over-priced shisha.
3. intimacy. its almost enjoyable to have returned to a state of prude innocence, hah. the lack of sexual intention makes interactions so much more pleasant and gives any slightly lustful exchange of glances so much more refreshing.

This weekend was a nearly hedonistic.

On Thursday night we piled on to this overcrowded little bus for a 6 hour drive to Hurghada. At 2am we found an absolutely gorgeous safari boat awaiting our arrival. The weekend, all of which was spent drifting the Red Sea, was literally a page out of some luxury paradise brocure, the crew cooked outstanding Middle Eastern food fresh at every meal and third-story deck provided a bed beneath a blanket of black sky and thousands of stars…. Life was literally: Wake up. Eat. Dive. Nap. Dive. Eat. Chill. Eat. Nap. Eat. Dive. Eat. Dive. Chill….for 48 hours. I’m attracted to SCUBA in a purely practical way: eff the fish and the reef - I feel like I am invading their habitat and I get stressed out thinking I am going to knock some poor creature’s entire life of growing into coral dust with one kick of my fin… The simple sensation of being underwater, not having to worry about floating or breathing, is what captures me. It’s fascinating to watch how people behave underwater, too. I’m interested in taking the rescue diver course, but that would require me to take the advanced diving course first… then again ship wrecks and night dives might be too tempting to pass up. This may become my new addiction.

also, Ramadan has begun and the city is entirely different. The streets are quiet, shops are closed... during iftar the untrained eye would think the city was abandoned... but inside resteraunts and houses people are breaking fast with sweet dates, tea, and course upon course of food. Before I left my mum asked me what I was most excited for and I told her this month, so inshaAllah it will be as sweet and generous as expected. Ramadan kareem.

First and foremost, a grand apology for not posting. Upon arrival to AUC, study abroad students were informed that during our "acculturalation" process, we would encounter a frustrating dip in our emotions. Luckily I have yet to encounter a dip of any sort, but this week has definitely been the least pleasant among a month of outstanding ones.

For example, this week provided me with the most cultural awkward day I've yet had in Cairo....

Everything started out normal: I rolled out of bed, went to the neighborhood falafel place to pick up lunch for sasha and I, passed by one of the dozen corner kiosks for sweets and a phonecard, and then bravely ventured into the neighborhood grocery store for a big box of water. Please note that Greg, who had been living with us for the past week or so had previously be charged with this responsibility and sash and I would normally have just trekked to Zamalek to shop in the confort of an uber-westernized English-speaking environment. Greg had prepared me for the experience, explaining that a little grocery boy would carry the box to our apartment and two pounds would suffice as payment. So, indeed Hussein, a 14 year old Egyptian boy, and I waded down the narrow streets of our neighborhood until sharia' abdel hamid said where every twenty seconds I assured him I could take the box from here…I am American. My attempts were thwarted and we wound up in the elevator where everything went down hill. The typical "Are you married?" dance elevated into total mess… eventually leading to a thwarted kiss, a shouting match of broken Arabic, and sasha and I pushing with all our weight against our door.

We were not going to be typical Americans in this situation. We were going to be Egyptian women. And in case you don't know, Egyptian woman have an astute faculty for bitchiness. Our goal was to march down to the market, clad in our most modest clothing, and explain to the manager what had happen and insist that the boy be reprimanded. Unfortunately we don't speak Arabic. So, Moodi, like always, came to our rescue and preceded to march down to the market to perform the aforementioned shaming of the local grocery boy. I think everyone within in a three 10 foot radius peeked into the grocery shop to watch the ordeal unroll. Envision: A circle of gossip-hungry Egyptian men and women encircling Moodi, shadowed by me and sasha feigning looks of seriousness and the shop keeper, shadowed by a teenage fuckwit feigning innocence, characterized by sweeping arm gestures and sharp sounding Arabic phrases.

At the end of the day, Sasha and I had shamed the neighborhood grocery boy, and received a dirty, bug-infested gift of pots and pans from our endearing yet odd bowab. I'm still not sure how the pots came into the situation…

Nevertheless, laterns are popping up on every storefront and the conversation seems to buzz with one word: Ramadan. The last month of the Islamic year is begining... very, very cool. I"m just writing from the library before heading out to Hurgada for the a weekend to get my SCUBA certification. More updates soon.

Classes are outstanding, unfortunately the city and Egypt generally is far too enticing for them to become the sole priority. people keep sending me notes with phrases like, “hope you are having the time of your life” and initially I thought these phrases were a bit superfluous or at least exaggerated, but this week, Thursday morning at 3a to be exact, i realized they are neither. Sasha looked at me and said, “this has been the most exciting month of my life”. It’s true. The past three weeks have definitely been unparallel, if not in excitement than at least in some other quality of experience. Twenty minutes before this nostalgic little moment of ours, we were galloping through the Sahara desert with the pyramids in the distance.

The moment a horse transitions from a clumsy trot into a sweeping gallop is one of the most exhilarating feelings I’ve ever experienced. On the way back to Giza, Mohammed said, “Ya Aminah, you’re a good rider, you’ll enjoy this…” and so I followed him. Perhaps a mistake, but one made gladly. After a few minutes of genuine fear and doubt in my safety, I found myself unable to keep the sound of exhilaration inside my body. A breathy haa, haa, haa emanated from, my soul - I think, with every gallop while Mohammed cried “yallah!” and we distanced ourselves from the others: just twilight, a cold breeze, hooves upon sand, deep breathing, and the deafening silence of the desert. This was just one of some many moments here that I am acutely aware and extremely happy that I am alive.

God help us all. Video: Bush reflects on 9/11*

I do not want to talk about terrorism. I want to talk about the indecency of humanity, the self-interest of politicians, and the ignorance of the rich and powerful. The first time I mentioned “9/11” yesterday, was 4pm over shisha with Amanda, she too spent her day unbeknownst of the date but noted its historical significance for our country. This morning I browsed CNN for the Bush transcript and other remembrance clips. I got approximately 3 minutes into Bush’s 16 minutes address, before I went to the water closet at Costa and vomited: There is an inexcusable lapse in empathy between the Middle East and America, amongst Americans themselves, and amongst the powerful in the world system and all those burdened by it. When did Samuel Huntington become the voice of the US administration? I find it ironic and deeply saddening that the people in the world who have the luxury of worrying about world problems seem incapable of comprehending the multiple view points of any given situation, and of fathoming the infinite potential America has to reconcile issues rather than exacerbating them.

The clash of civilizations, as Bush notes so obediently from Lewis and Huntingtown, is a cop-out; is a gauntlet of warfare; is the argument of conservative, wealthy, Americans of European decent with little interest in a global community.

The word ‘evil’ which, is also tossed out confidently during the address, is an irrelevant term because what we define as evil is entirely subjective to our personal and moral compass. Using such blanket phrases as “terrorism” and “evil” is tolerable from a homogeneous, close-minded, and entirely self-interested organization, but from the US? from the country with one of the world’s most eclectic mix of ethnic backgrounds, political standpoints, and financial situations?

I think if Bush and I were in a casual situation, we would agree in far more ways than we disagree: America is threatened by rising extremism in the world. But what is to be done is where I think the Bush Administration and I would disagree. The message the 16 minute address sent to me is “we will get them back”. But I don’t want to get “them” back. Yes, I am NOT the mother of a killed solider or the wife of a 9.11 victim, but I am still a compatriot of those people and I truly don’t think revenge will ease their pain. I think revenge is retroactive and what we need is a proactive solution.

I am a 20something college student living abroad, enjoying affluence, safety, and relative independence from responsibilities… I have the luxury of giving a shit what the US government said today and the naiviete to think I have a better grasp on international affairs then a staff of hundreds of people in Washington. In all fairness, all I can say is when I clicked on to CNN this morning I had expected – had hoped for – something comforting, and instead I received evidence that the voice of the US administration is not reflective of its constituents as a whole, that the crusades never ended, and that America is very, very much at risk, not only from the extremist Islamists abroad, but also the extremist evangelicals at home.

Insomnia is a natural state of mind in Cairo. The sunset brings with it a massive breath of cooler air and everyone seems to pour onto the streets to embrace it. Greg and I sat in Midaan Tahrir watching the moon set and the sunrise yesterday morning after spending the wee hours with Amanda, and Aladin’s friends Wael and Ramy in Mohandessin. Standing sleep-deprived but very satisfied on the October 6^th Bridge we were amazed entire families were still out on the street at such an odd hour of the morning. The most interesting moment might have been when the parked car blasting Arabic pop music stopped for the call of dawn call and then continued on with its early morning hijinks after it was finished, like something truly sacred existed in the few minutes of the muzzins call. Other interesting highlights of the week include:

Walking bustling Cairene streets elevates to a new level with an iPod. Most invigorating musical accompaniments thus far include: Busoni’s Presto Sonata and Busta Rhymes’ I Love My Bitch.

Everytime I walk to school I pass this little shop with an awesome black dress, almost too hip to be called an abbiya (traditional Islamic overdress) in the window… Yesterday when I walked by it was gone, so I went in and asked about it… The woman brought the sultry black floor length hooded gown with turquoise beading from the backroom and had me try it on. Needless to say, I’ve invested in my first abbiya.

Overflowing washing machines, bum shower heads without any approximation of water pressure, light fixtures that stay in the wall out of habit rather than legitimate nails or screws… living in an apartment in Cairo is a comedy of errors. Nevertheless, when I turn off Shari’ Botan onto the little alley that leads to our building I feel the sensation of home, so home it is for the time being.

This weekend was the international study retreat at el Gouna, more aptly described as a vacation away from Cairo air pollution and city noise into an oasis of European luxury on the Red Sea. Despite the AUC elitism that seemed to pervade the gathering, I found a pretty hip little group of friends and enjoyed eating-sleeping-swimming-eating-sleeping-swimming cycle tremendously. We went out one night to a dance club that was open air and it was so nice to be with the aforementioned group of friends simply dancing all the subliminal frustrations or anxiety of our first full week in Egypt into oblivion. At 4am on Sunday I went down to the beach all by my onesy and preceeded to wade into the Red Sea wearing a sweatshirt and my undies. The sea seemed like an inifinte, dark abyss and the sky above was lit by thousands of stars….it was unforgettably beautiful. The true highlight of the trip was probably seeing whirling dervishes for the first time. The dervishes were quite literally human spinning-tops, but watching the passion on their faces brought it to a level beyond visual interest and into spiritual eudaimonia. Wahdat (unity), the main principle of Sufism, is based on the belief that everything is a manifestation of a single reality: al-Haq (God, Truth); yet the essence of this reality does not have a form, therefore the pursuit of every Sufi is to separate themselves from the duality of essence and existence, to realize divine unity.

Classes start tomorrow and this evening Sasha, Greg, Amanda and I are headed to Khan al-Khalili, the biggest souk in Africa, for some evening hijinks and vicious bargaining. *I have extremely cool videos of both the dervishes and an awe-inducingly-attractive bellydancer, just shoot me an email or pop a comment.